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Serenity felt it like a punch to the gut: Russ was in danger. Deadly danger.
He would realize later that the warning was from Moment of Prescience, but at the time he didn’t stop to think. He simply reacted, pushing Russ to the side and down. He didn’t know what the threat was or where it was coming from, but getting the target out of the way was usually the first step.
As he moved, he felt something hit him in the shoulder, the back, and the head...
2022-05-28 22:48:24 +0000 UTC
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Russ set his box back in the open slot. “Let’s go. We’ve wasted enough time here, we’ll need to figure out where the base could have come from somewhere else.”
Serenity stared at Russ. Was this illusion strong enough to warp memories? If it was, approaching it directly would probably not work. “What about the other boxes?”
“Other boxes?” Russ looked at Serenity blankly.
“The ones in the photos.” Serenity hoped Russ would ...
2022-05-28 22:46:27 +0000 UTC
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With today's bonus chapter, Pathed is 20 chapters ahead of RR.
Woot!
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The next morning, after discussing the night’s dream over breakfast, Serenity and Rissa went to the edge of Aki’s territory to see if her reaction to sunlight was simply her reaction to backlash or if there was something more. A temporary backlash reaction wasn’t unusual.
Unfortunately, when she stepped out from Aki’s zone of influence, the sunlight changed from gentl...
2022-05-27 22:55:36 +0000 UTC
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Desinka is the vampire Serenity rescued on Tzintkra; Rakyn, her father, is the Messenger who delivered the Dreamstone to the Healer’s Guild in exchange for Desinka’s healing (which turned out to be anything but healing).
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Rissa felt better the moment they reached Aki’s territory. It was like someone flipped a switch; her headache was half as strong, the nausea and aching on her skin where it was exposed vanished, and it felt like a weight she’d bee...
2022-05-26 22:41:35 +0000 UTC
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Rissa watched as the vase was pulled out of the oven, just before it was fired. She’d seen it used. An interesting fight, but it really hadn’t told her that much. She was looking forward to the next part; she’d finally made it back to when the vase was made. Right before the firing should be when the patterns were added; with luck, there might even be more than that. If nothing else, she wanted to know if they made the vases one at a time or in batches. ...
2022-05-25 22:48:45 +0000 UTC
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Serenity concentrated and tried to call on his new Multiform ability. He wanted his Sovereign form with the “eyes” of his chimera form, including the ability to take pictures and even record video. Some way to transfer it to Aide was important, too.
After a couple of minutes of trying one thing and another, Serenity felt things shift strangely. He was still where he had been, but he was also falling through the air - bouncing on the table - lying there...
2022-05-24 23:00:03 +0000 UTC
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Serenity shifted to his Sovereign form, then felt as his sword-self fell to the grass.
Oops. He’d forgotten about that. He’d brought the sword just in case, even though he didn’t really expect to use it … him. Whichever. He should have shifted it to the Sovereign form instead of his human body, shouldn’t he? It would have made more sense, at least if he could manage to move one and not the other.
He wasn’t sure if he could or not; he ha...
2022-05-23 22:51:40 +0000 UTC
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Serenity laid the scooter on its side in the grass at the other end of the parking lot in front of the warehouse. They hadn’t followed the trail all the way in, but he wasn’t about to pretend he didn’t know where it led. “I can’t see this as a coincidence. How much did you search the facility when you were here?”
Rissa dropped her scooter next to Serenity’s and shook her head. “Only enough to find the stolen stuff, searching a warehou...
2022-05-22 22:42:27 +0000 UTC
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Aki and Serenity watched the four men in black until they left the dungeon. The only notable surprise was that one of them seemed to disappear for a few seconds; since he reappeared with damaged clothing and a sword strapped to his belt, it wasn’t hard to guess that he’d been taken into the Tutorial.
It was almost surprising that the others hadn’t; most Tutorials seemed to pick up everyone who hadn’t been through the Tutorial yet who was within a ...
2022-05-21 23:05:01 +0000 UTC
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Holding his form in the Origin was difficult, and grew harder the longer he was there. It simply wasn’t comfortable to have a fixed material form. Since Rube didn’t seem to be stirring, Serenity allowed his sword-self to relax into his Sovereign form. It took a little effort to shift only a single form, but with concentration he was able to manage it.
The pressure to shift kept growing. Serenity wanted to experiment a little, so he shifted from his chi...
2022-05-21 23:00:02 +0000 UTC
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During the Tutorial, Serenity completed another level of the Solo dungeon. It was annoying; a beach and shallow sea level where the monsters tended to come on him without warning. Having a giant, head-sized clam latch onto your foot from under a layer of sand wasn’t dangerous, so it didn’t set off his Skill that warned of danger, but it was certainly annoying. It was even worse when it was immediately followed by a pair of giant lobsters flinging themse...
2022-05-20 22:19:43 +0000 UTC
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“Changing into a horror? Have you talked to Margrethe about that?” Blaze sipped his zeht while he watched Serenity over the rim of the mug.
Serenity shook his head and leaned back, resting against the back of the chair. Sometimes it was nice to not have wings. “No, Rube definitely isn’t suffering from monster core exposure. It’s similar, but in some ways exactly the opposite; it happened while the djinn was alive, plus a burst either while I was...
2022-05-19 23:02:18 +0000 UTC
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Serenity tried to move, but every time he did, both bodies moved. After enough trial and error, he managed to get both to their feet, but only after he’d managed to get them both in the same position on the floor.
He tried to take a step forward. The first step worked, but when he reached out to grab the door handle, he punched himself in the back. There was no way he was going to manage to get anywhere quickly like this.
Even if he could, he di...
2022-05-18 22:47:09 +0000 UTC
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Serenity was once again surrounded by blackness. It felt like a long time since he’d last Exolved or increased his Path, but he was once again here. He vaguely wondered what was happening to him in the real world, but there wasn’t anyone who could check on him and see so he’d simply have to find out for himself when he went back. It hadn’t seemed that extreme after the first time, but he also hadn’t ever had anyone watch.
Maybe next time he sho...
2022-05-17 23:00:20 +0000 UTC
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Serenity looked up at the others. “That wasn’t the worst thing I did, but it was the worst thing I did for a long time, and probably the least justified. Probably. Along the way, I learned a lot. It’s hard to summarize, but you’ve seen me cast magic and you’ve seen me use runes; those are both things I learned after Earth died. Other than that, I learned that my goals were all wrong and that people really, really hate the undead.” That might not be ...
2022-05-16 23:03:32 +0000 UTC
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It took Serenity several hours and three monster cores to finish the rune inscription he selected. He wasn’t certain how much paper he used, but he’d had to get more several times, since the pattern was too big for an 8 ½ by 11 sheet of paper. It was a rune he’d been fond of at one point, primarily a barrier but with the ability to warn the caster and limited defense ability. It would only last a couple of days, but while it did, it was exceedingly useful.<...
2022-05-15 22:52:52 +0000 UTC
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Excerpt from the twenty-seventh draft of An Earthling’s Guide to the Larger Universe
Dungeon Types (Continued)
Crafting dungeons are one of several very specialized dungeon types; similar to puzzle dungeons, they come in a number of different types. In fact, some dungeon scholars claim that crafting dungeons are simply a subtype of puzzle dungeons.
I don’t agree. They’re similar, but pu...
2022-05-14 22:44:52 +0000 UTC
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Serenity didn’t have any good ideas on how to help Rube, so he turned towards Aki’s core rather than packing everything back up in his bag. “I don’t have anything. You said you had more ideas?”
Aki sounded pleased to be consulted. :A few, though the next one is similar. How close are you to your next Path? Raz is quite a ways away, but you have mentioned the advantage of being able to return to the Tutorial. Can you choose a new Path that might...
2022-05-14 22:41:32 +0000 UTC
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Rissa flopped down on one of the couches. It was close enough to reach Aki’s crystal, but she didn’t need to. “Why did Katya leave? I’d expected her to be interested. She always wants to be clear on the plan when we go into a battle. Especially in that Cave of Shadows we did a couple days ago, that place was annoying.”
Serenity shuddered at the mention of that dungeon. The dungeon hadn’t really been a threat, it had simply been annoying.
...
2022-05-13 22:59:55 +0000 UTC
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The entire “living” area was different. Instead of individual “small hills” that were really dome-shaped buildings covered in grass, there was a single larger hillside. There was one relatively obvious entrance, a set of stone steps that led upwards to a stone door. It wasn’t exactly hidden, but it was situated where it would be in shadow for most of the day. Even though it was on the side closest to the nearest trail, it would be easy to overlook.
2022-05-12 22:58:08 +0000 UTC
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<Wealth, women, and power beyond your dreams can be yours with my help. All you have to do is say yes.>
Serenity ignored the voice. He knew it was simply trying to get him to lower his defenses. He might have to take down the shield, but he was not going to accept the djinn. Any sort of acceptance made it harder to get rid of attackers that went after the mind or spirit.
Serenity’s will held solid as he scraped at the bits of magic with th...
2022-05-11 23:02:43 +0000 UTC
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All it seemed to want was to take a “host”, and it didn’t exactly seem inclined to ask. That was enough; Serenity knew it had to die. There was only one question left to ask before he dealt with it. “Can you undo what you did to Rube?”
<Rube?>
Right, names. Serenity was pretty sure he knew how to identify Rube to the djinn. “The man you were trying to make into a host.”
<Lost host? Undo the Change? No. Potential is realiz...
2022-05-10 22:40:00 +0000 UTC
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Serenity’s attention went to Rube first. At first glance, it didn’t look like anything had changed, but tears streamed from his eyes as he screamed. His arms were in front of him, holding each other, but it wasn’t clear what the problem was.
Serenity and Russ didn’t move. Rissa reflexively stood, but when she bonked her shoulder into the invisible wall bounding her hexagon, she sat back down.
“Why is he yelling?” Serenity looked at Ris...
2022-05-09 22:56:01 +0000 UTC
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I’m no artist, but the image later in the chapter should give a general idea of what the circle looks like.
Yes, they’re all in hexagonal shapes inside the circle (other than the vase); there are also some symbols I didn’t draw in the white space.
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It was a problem Serenity didn’t have. Earth was notably free of the sort of continual magical presence that many planets had, and on top of that Serenity was performing the ritual on th...
2022-05-08 23:00:41 +0000 UTC
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Serenity knew he shouldn’t be surprised by that after Russ’s comment that it might be a djinn, but this wasn’t acting like any of the djinn he’d dealt with before. The most memorable one was the time he’d run into one bound to a ring; he could still remember the genie’s deliberate misunderstanding of the “wish” Vengeance hadn’t even meant as one. It was funny to think about now, but at the time it’d been anything but funny.
It was acti...
2022-05-07 22:49:56 +0000 UTC
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Serenity wasn’t certain whether he should watch Rube or the vase, so his attention moved back and forth. Rube almost seemed to be fighting himself; he was tense and seemed to want to get the vase out of the box and put it back in all at the same time. At one point, it almost seemed like he was going to hit the vase in frustration; Serenity started to move to intervene, since breaking an artifact could be a very bad thing, but stopped when he saw that Rube had ...
2022-05-07 22:44:55 +0000 UTC
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Phoebe sat on Rissa’s bed crying. A vision of one’s death was always disturbing.
What was worse was that this was the third vision she’d had of her own death in the past week. It kept changing. Originally, she’d always known she’d die of old age, while Russ watched over her. It had been reassuring to know that wawa how she’d go. In the past week, she’d seen herself die in a traffic accident, by drowning, and more recently by suicide.
Why...
2022-05-06 23:06:55 +0000 UTC
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“I’d like to get a look at that vase, but not here. Too many people around to be safe. Russ, do you have a working area set up? With proper wards and-”
Serenity stopped and looked at Russ. Of course he wouldn’t have such an area; Russ didn’t do spellwork. At least, he didn’t think he did; Serenity knew that a fair bit of what he did in combat was at least similar to spellwork, even if it did use Essence instead of Mana. “On second thought …...
2022-05-05 23:03:47 +0000 UTC
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“One last question before we go, Mr. Rothmer.” The TV host’s bright smile blurred with the four other interviews Serenity had done in the past three days. “You’ve exploded in notoriety within the past month or two. Are you planning to turn that into something? A new business, or perhaps a Presidential run?”
Serenity knew he had to be careful how he answered that one; people were watching, and even a minor inconsistency would be called out...
2022-05-04 23:01:13 +0000 UTC
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Dick Jones picked the toy Alaskan Malamute out of the tray on his door and chuckled. Sometimes he wished the rest of the department had never figured out what his middle name was; someone would always pass it along to the students every year, then the class joker would leave him something. It was a bit late this year, really; it was already October and this was the first one he’d gotten.
At least it was a toy dog this time, and they’d even gotten the b...
2022-05-03 22:32:56 +0000 UTC
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